58 THE CULTURE OF THE CHRYSANTHEMUM. 



high ; leave three shoots to grow about five or six inches ; 

 then pinch again, and leave three shoots to each as before. 

 Let these grow, and you will get a plant in a y-in. pot (which 

 is quite large enough) with nine lovely sprays. If you want 

 large flowers, disbud them to one on each shoot. But the 

 small flowers look better in sprays. Some varieties are 

 very dwarf, and only grow from eighteen inches to two feet. 

 Miss Rose, Miss Mary Anderson, and many of the small 

 sorts, are better left with as many shoots as they will 

 carry, and they will be a mass of bloom. Singles should 

 always be let go on to the terminal bud, for you then get 

 the natural colour and pure singile flower. If they are 

 taken on the crown, or second crown, the colour is not 

 good, and you sometimes get semi-double flowers. 



Very dwarf plants can be had by rooting four cuttings in 

 a 4-in. pot in July. Tops of growing plants are best. 

 Leave them to grow and flower in these pots. Do not 

 disbud them, and you will get pretty little plants less than 

 a foot high. ' 



After Flowering. 



When your large Japs have finished flowering and you 

 want a little more show, dig up some bushes of singles 

 from the open ground and pot them. Water them in ; 

 sprinkle them overhead once or twice to prevent flagging, 

 and you will soon have another display, which will be an 

 entire change; indeed, I very much doubt if they will not 

 be more appreciated even than the large flowering varieties. 

 But it is quite probable that they will be affording you so 

 many cut flowers in the open that you will not want to 

 dig them up. However, if a sharp frost should occur, it 

 would be as well to put a few sticks amongst them, and 

 hang mats over them, although they will stand five or six 

 degrees of frost and look none the worse for it in the 

 morning. 



I have more than once taken first prize at the old 

 Aquarium at Westminster with singles which I cut from 

 the open ground without any protection the second week 

 in December. 



